Sunday, June 29, 2008

Pacing: It's Like Racing...Without the "R"...sorta

Today, I had the opportunity to be an official pacer at the Seafair Marathon. I was one of four people assigned to a snail's pace and so, instead of doing one leg of it--the assigned 6.something, something miles--I decided to run with my friend for half of the race (13.1 miles). We looked at it as a "fun run"...a typical long run we enjoy with our group on most Saturdays. We figured it was going to be easy! It was going to be fun! We were going to enjoy the scenery! And what's more, since we volunteered our time and services, we got a free pair of Brooks running shoes out of the deal. What could possibly go wrong? we mused yesterday, as we picked up our schwag at the Expo and watched the temperature climb steadily to record highs.

Apparently, a lot.

The race was slated to start at Husky Stadium this morning at 7:00 a.m., but they wanted racers to come across the water and park at Bellevue Square, across the street from the finish. They hired school buses for shuttles and began taking people across the water as early as 5:00 or so. Given that I wasn't one of the starters, I made my way across the 520 bridge four minutes before it was scheduled to close, so by the time I got to Bellevue Square, it was about 6:55--or five minutes from guntime. Yet there were still hundreds of people standing in line at the FINISH, waiting for a shuttle to take them across the bridge to the START.

I can't accurately report what happened next first hand, because I was across the street in the mall's parking structure with my driver, but by 7:05, an announcement had been made to those who were still on the Eastside that they wouldn't be able to run the full marathon but that they'd be shuttled to the halfway point since there weren't anymore buses to take people to the start. Imagine signing up to run a full marathon; paying the higher fee, and training your ass off for four months, only to be told you can only run half of it. Hmmm...

Anyway, getting back to my little group: Our driver was awesome--a 15+ year-veteran of Seafair. But since the course had changed from the year before, he had a tough time trying to figure out on the map where our rendezvous point would we would relieve people running the first two legs. So after some driving around, we went to the water station in between miles 13-14 because he thought that was where we needed to be. So we figured when it was near our time, we would walk around the corner and down the hill further back in the course to find our teammate. We even called our running group director to ask what the official guntime turned out to be (it was 7:15) so we could re-calculate our handoff time.

So, we waited at the water station with other pace groups, and during that time, one of the runners noticed that the water table looked kind of sparse for such a hot day, and the fact that this was the halfway mark and that there were almost 5,000 people running. So she spoke with one of the volunteers at the water table who said, kind of nonchalantly, that they had run out of cups and that they probably weren't getting any more. Given that it was 73 degrees by 8:30, this did not bode well--especially since runners would be taking more than one water cup to drink and douse themselves. What's more, the table had both Gleukos and water, but there was no delineation between the two. Both were clear liquid and both were poured into the same Gleukos cups, which would have made for a huge, sticky mess of runners who needed to cool themselves off by dousing. But thankfully, the runner from my group took charge, kicked some ass, took names, and whipped the water table into shape before the Kenyans came.

Once the 8:35 min/mile pacer left, follwed by the 9:10 pacers, my friend and I got out of the sleek, airconditioned Seafair Suburban and stood with a bunch of other relay people to wait for our teammate. By 9:33, she still hadn't shown and we were getting a little worried. We waited a little longer (our first mistake) but then made the judgment call to just go. Even factoring out the guntime delay and the heat, we figured we would need to cross the finish line at 12:00 noon to make our pace, but because we waited for our teammate we were 11 minutes behind schedule, which meant we had to up our pace to a full minute per mile faster to try and make up for lost time.

And while the faster pace was one I could hold for a 10 or 12k, it's a little too fast for me for a half marathon distance, particularly when the course is super hilly and it's 78 degrees. We started out strong, but our segment was the hilliest of the course--and between miles 14-20, we encountered some MAJOR climbs. I told my friend that if he could hold steady at our faster pace for the rest of the race, he should just go on ahead because I knew I wouldn't be able to do that for 13 miles in the heat.

So I'm running pretty much by myself and there are random people running up to me because I have a "PACER" shirt on and they're saying, "HEY! So-and-So (the teammate I'd been waiting for) was looking for you! You weren't at the handoff!" And I'm going, "I most certainly was! Where was she? I didn't see her!" and I see this one guy whom I had seen run past me on the course while I was waiting for So-and-So (he happened to be one of the guys calling out to me) and I said, "Well, I saw you but I didn't see you with So-and-So." So apparently, she stopped at a sign that read "Relay Exchange Point" (makes sense, doesn't it?) and my running partner and I never saw that sign because we were about a half a mile UP from that point, where our driver thought our exchange would take place!

Anyway at this point, we're at mile 18 and I've pretty much caught up to the time I wasted at the water stop, waiting for So-and-So but I am dead tired and ready to collapse from the heat (I heard later that someone had collapsed in the Costco parking lot right around that point of the race) and as we round the corner, this GINORMOUS hill looms ahead...and I see my running partner's green shirt at the top of this hill, sooooooo very far away. I was about to call it quits when a woman calls out, "Heyyyyy! It's a pacer! Boy, I'm so glad to see you!!!" and I think, "There's no way I can quit now. This woman has been running the full 18+ miles and she's ecstatic to have found a pacer." So, I started running with her and it turns out she had been running with So-and-So earlier in the race, but lost track of her, so she was glad to have finally found another pacer.

I ran with this woman from mile 18 to mile 22 when the blister on the ball of my right foot started screaming at me and I told her it was the end of the line for me. She was still going super strong and there was no way I could keep up--especially having spent so much of my energy nine miles earlier. She was great, though, and it seemed she was going to have a pretty commendable finish given that it was her first full marathon and that she had conquered the heat and hills respectably.

At this point, though, I was in Carillon Point and I still had over four miles to go. I slowed to a walk, hoping some wayard official-looking Seafair Suburban would pull up and take me to the finish. Instead, people at every water station kept cheering me on. "Lookin' good! You're almost there!" I had to laugh. This was one of the most unconventional racing situations I'd ever been in. Finally, I get to Mile 23 and straight ahead is the steepest hill of the entire race--over the 520 interchange. It was 11:45 and the sun was just beating down on us and there was no way I was going to run up that hill. I just had nothing left to give. Yet, I was so grateful I wasn't running the race for a goal...I would have been so damned depressed at that point. I just did the only thing I could do--kept going toward the finish line, taking it all in stride, so to speak.

I finally crossed the finish line at 12:33. My running partner waited for me (he finished on pace!) and we made a few phone calls until we reached someone who was with So-and-So, who had wondered what the hell had happened to us at the exchange. But once she heard our version of the story, she wasn't too surprised. "Next year," I said, "we grab each other's cell phone numbers!" This was a debacle that could have easily been avoided.

I will say one thing, though. I DEFINITELY earned those free running shoes today!

1 comment:

Dan said...

Great story! It seems that every race has *some* sort of adventure, but you never know what it is until you get into the middle of it...